Today in History: February 4, Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin begin World War II Yalta conference
FILE - This is a Feb. 4, 1945, file photo of from left, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin as they sit on the patio of Livadia Palace, Yalta, Crimea. Initially hailed as a major success, the conference later came to be viewed by some as the moment that the U.S. ceded too much influence to the Soviets and the trigger for the Cold War. (AP Photo/File)
Today in History:
On Feb. 4, 1945, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a wartime conference at Yalta.
On this date:
In 1783, Britain’s King George III proclaimed a formal cessation of hostilities in the American Revolutionary War.
In 1789, electors chose George Washington to be the first president of the United States.
In 1801, John Marshall was confirmed by the Senate as chief justice of the United States.
In 1913, Rosa Parks, a Black woman whose 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus to a white man sparked a civil rights revolution, was born Rosa Louise McCauley in Tuskegee.
In 1974, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, 19, was kidnapped in Berkeley, California, by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army.
In 1976, more than 23,000 people died when a severe earthquake struck Guatemala with a magnitude of 7.5.
In 1977, eleven people were killed when two Chicago Transit Authority trains collided on an elevated track.
In 1997, a civil jury in Santa Monica, California, found O.J. Simpson liable for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, after he had been acquitted at his criminal trial.
In 1999, senators at President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial voted to permit the showing of portions of Monica Lewinsky’s videotaped deposition.
In 2004, Facebook had its beginnings as Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg launched “Thefacebook.”
In 2012, Florence Green, who had served with the Women’s Royal Air Force and was recognized as the last veteran of World War I, died in King’s Lynn, eastern England, at age 110.
In 2013, British scientists announced they had rescued the skeletal remains of King Richard III, who lived during the 15th century, from the anonymity of a drab municipal parking lot.
In 2017, running backs LaDainian Tomlinson and Terrell Davis and quarterback Kurt Warner were elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
In 2018, the Philadelphia Eagles, led by backup quarterback Nick Foles, became NFL champs for the first time since 1960, beating Tom Brady and the New England Patriots 41-33 in the Super Bowl.
In 2020, thousands of medical workers in Hong Kong were on strike for a second day to demand that the country’s border with China be completely closed to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus; the territory reported its first death from the virus and the second known fatality outside China.
In 2021, a voting technology company, Smartmatic USA, sued Fox News, three of its hosts and two former Trump lawyers – Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell – for $2.7 billion, for allegedly conspiring to spread false claims that the company helped “steal” the presidential election.
In 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared the Winter Olympics open at a ceremony at Beijing’s Bird Nest Stadium.
In 2023, the U.S. military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast on orders from President Joe Biden, after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America.